Thursday, 5 February 2009

Thought Police strike again

So the BBC has terminated the contract of Carol Thatcher. Doubtless you've heard of this already so I won't go into the details other than to say that she referred to a French tennis player, Gael Monfils, as a gollywog. Now take one look and ask yourself does he look like one.

Be that as it may, the key point is that this was said in a private conversation. Yes, a private conversation that was reported to the Diversity Big Brother. So we've now reached the stage where, a la Soviet Russia or East Germany, your private conversations can lose you your job.

Now so many of you rail against 'liberals' for outrages like this. But can't you see that this is the polar opposite of liberalism? The beauty of liberalism (and also the dangerous downside) is that anything goes - smoke pot, let your mate screw your girlfriend etc.

As I said in this post, what we're seeing here is not 'liberalism', rather a new and insidious totalitarianism. There are legitimate and serious objections to many real liberal tenets. Closing down free speech certainly isn't one of them.

It's hard to believe that the BBC has come to this. I worked there many years ago and anything was up for comment. Only objection would have been for vulgar language. But you could say anything and there woiuld be no threat to your job.